Bonds has to come clean or go away

August 11, 12:36 PMSF Baseball ExaminerDavid Bush

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Barry Bonds can't duck the media forever

Barry Bonds’ smile was as wide as China Basin Saturday night as he returned the Giants’ ballpark for the first time since the end of last season. That he was greeted with a standing ovation was predictable, as was his subtle reference to his willingness to play. He said he had trouble reconciling the fact he wasn’t in uniform and the Dodgers were in the visiting dugout.

The feel-good fest continued as Bonds publicly hugged owner Peter Magowan and chatted it up on the air with the radio broadcasters.

But the whole thing was a fraud, so typical of Bonds. He was gone before the seventh inning and he had ducked the interview session the Giants staged with the other outfielders on hand as part of the team’s 50^th anniversary celebration.  Smiling is easy when no one is asking you difficult questions. If Bonds really wants to play again, he must face the notebooks and microphones. There is no way around it.

I certainly don’t blame players for getting mad at journalists. We can do terrible things. Many times I have heard athletes say something and have the meaning totally transformed in the next day’s paper. Heck, it’s happened to me.

But Bonds isn’t afraid of being misquoted. He’s afraid of the truth. And when he talked it was he, not the media, playing fast and loose with the facts. His famous spring training press conference two years ago, the one where he said  “You finally brought me down,’’ is a perfect example. Nobody was trying to “bring him down.’’ Some serious charges had been (or were about to be) brought against him by both the authorities and other journalists. The press simply wanted him to tell his side of the story.

His evasion, which continues to this day, leads to the conclusion that has something to hide. If the story told in the book “Game of Shadows" is really untrue, Bonds would have grounds for a libel suit, or at least a demand for a retraction. So far, not a peep.

It’s easy to stay quiet when you are out of media range. Security was pretty tight around him Saturday. But that was a one-time event.  He knows that if he does sign with a team, he can’t hide forever. Nobody says he has to answer the questions. But they will be asked and asked again. You can only hide in the training room so long. “No comment,’’ might work for a while, but he will get awfully tired of saying it.